Sometimes, people have very biased views because the only people with the opposite viewpoint are no good at backing up their point.

Some people hold a viewpoint which never changes purely because they surround themselves with people who agree with them (which is fairly normal for friends)

People don’t go looking for good justification for the opposite of what they think; if you are a lefty, how often do you go looking for well argued right-wing views? (my blog values)

Digg should encourage an unbiased debate, where people can submit good arguments for both sides of an argument.

By showing the best arguments for each side of any debate, everyone gets heard, and everyone can question and refine their views (which is probably good for the human race in general)

By submitting stories that back up or refute a question, the best, most thought-out arguments should rise to the top and become visible to everyone on the Home page [for debates].

Features I thought about

I had a good think about how this would work, and to keep it reliable and easy to use like everything else on Digg.com…

You can Digg a debate like any news story, allowing a front-page to be generated which shows the most popular every week [not like podcasts, which only show ‘all-time’ top podcasts].

The Home page should probably have the top 4 ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments. Arguments

In the details page (like the page where you comment on a News article), there will be no comments, but 2 full lists of articles submitted to back up each side of the debate.

The details page would give the ability to add a link to a ‘for’ or ‘against’ article and to Digg them also. I thought about comments, but if you are forced to blog about it, and then link to it, it should help the quality of the argument articles being submitted?

When you vote either YES or NO for a debate, you automatically Digg the debate itself. You can Digg the debate separately without voting also (if you haven’t made a choice yet).

When you vote, the Digg Button, pie chart and percentages all are updated without leaving the page (AJAX).

My screenshots are colored with the Digg colors. The pie chart wasn’t colored red for instance, because red can mean ‘wrong’ and we wouldn’t want to do a mind job on anyone to get them to vote.

If you like the mockups and want to make them better, put a comment on this article, and I’ll send the photoshop files. The UI concepts are pretty alpha, although I’ve tried to make them as uncluttered as possible, any suggestions welcome.